PROTESTERS ON THE STREETS OF SOFIA NEED YOUR SUPPORT

BULGARIA – If you had 24 years to change and refine a country’s policies, would you twist those to your benefit?

At first glance, beautiful Bulgaria has a lot of democracy going on — laws, elections, a parliament, a president, markets, EU membership, free will, the works, we have it. Look from the outside, and it’s clearly there. The inside of this strange hologram, though, feels very different, especially if you’re a Bulgarian.

Get the gist? I’ll bet you a fiver that you’re not getting the scale.

People are out in the streets, protesting. All major cities — Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas — six days and counting, tens of thousands of Bulgarians rallying for change, demanding that the incompetent “expert” government steps down, and that parliament is dissolved. CONTINUE READING

TURKEY – Recep Tayyip Erdoğan says ‘in a democracy decisions are made by voting at the time of elections. I and my party were elected with nearly %50 of the votes so we have a right to govern the country the way we like. If you have objections there is always a next election’. And this mentality is the core of issues.

Currently Turkey has an electorate of 46 million and 76 million people live in the country. In 2011 elections Tayyip Erdoğan/AKP got 21 million votes and the rest were shared by many different parties. This algorithm made AKP government, one of the most popular and powerful in the history of Turkish Republic. But what does popularity mean if leading party do not listen and understand the whole population? What does power mean if leading party do not use it for the common good of people? What will happen to us – the other 55 million – who did not vote for AKP? Do we all shut up and just live like nobodies with no opinions till the next elections? Governments and PMs might be popular but this does not mean that the citizens cannot criticize their policies/actions. More importantly power and popularity do not grant the right to oppress and physically harm people just because they are speaking up and expressing their disagreement. CONTINUE READING